About Me

I am a theatrical costume cutter/tailor at North America's largest repertory theatre. I've been working in the theatre since 1986, and have the privelege of working with many of the top-notch designers in Canada, the US and the UK. These include Desmond Heeley, Ann Curtis, Santo Loquasto, Patrick Clark, Christina Poddubiuk, John Pennoyer, Charlotte Dean, Susan Benson, Meredith Caron, Dany Lyne, Francois St.Aubin, Paul Tazewell, Jonathan Fensom, Debra Hanson among many others.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Tools of the Trade

Nice clean table- it won’t stay that way for long- it will get so crowded with stuff, that I will find myself working down at one end and in frustration will concede that I must reorganize and put things away so I can start messing it up all over again.You know what they say after all, a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. lol.

Here’s a photo of my tidy (for now) table and the usual tools of the trade-

brown paper for patterns -we don’t use oaktag because almost everything is a one off garment and patterns aren't often reused.

Scissors-my old Henckels for paper and my Wiss 20’s for fabric. My old Henckels were a gift more than 20 years ago and I love them! I think that they are on their final legs and won’t take too much more sharpening, but they are the best scissors, they’re elegant and pointy and sharp and they slide through paper like a knife through butter.I have two pairs of Wiss 20’s. I tried a larger size tailor’s shear but I find that my hand is too small to fully open the blade so I’ve stuck with these ones.

pencils, erasers and tape, needle point tracing wheel

tailor’s square (metric) I might have to get a new one someday because I’ve had this one for 20 years and some of the markings are fading! I grew up with Imperial measuring but I draft most everything in metric, and have been known to use both systems when convenient

metre stick

pattern notcher

C-thru ruler in inches and centimetres- I like this one because I can see thru it better

tape measure- I swear that all of the tape measures I have stashed are mine and not the ones from the fitting rooms - really!

push pins - my table is cork under the paper and I can pin into the table to hold patterns and fabric in place

graphite chalk to draw beautiful curved lines (Dixon 900 ) I never had a set of french curves nor a hip curve ruler to be honest - I just drew the shapes by “rock of eye”as they call it- I don’t know if I would want to change my ways now although many people use them to great advantage. The graphite chalk edge works so much better than a pencil point for drawing.

Tailor’s chalk- wax and chalk based for marking on fabric

reference books-Here’s the old standby, The cut of Men’s Clothes by Norah Waugh and, new in 2008, Patterns of Fashion 4 by Janet Arnold.My copy of The Cut of Men’s clothes has a price of $18.95 in it, so you know I bought it a long time ago!

My favourite local bookseller Fanfare Books, is getting ten copies of Patterns of Fashion in for us!Shop Local!Reference Books could be an interesting topic! A future post on reference books is in order. What are your favourites for cutting or research?